Sharp Aquos Sense 9 Smartphone Review – The Sharp Aquos Sense 9 was announced in October 2024 and started shipping in November 2024. The new smartphone is available on sale globally in many regions and will reach more areas, including Singapore. It has a rugged metallic unibody design that makes it a lot tougher than any traditional smartphone.
The design of the Sharp Aquos Sense 9 looks quite unique and stylish, which is strange for a rugged phone. The smartphone also has great hardware inside, including 5G connectivity, to deliver a great user experience. Sharp believes the new phone is truly unique and can be a real game changer in the smartphone market. So, let’s begin with a detailed review of the Sharp Aquos Sense 9 smartphone and find out if this smartphone is worth purchasing.
Table of Contents
Sharp Aquos Sense 9 Smartphone Review
Highlights
- The Sharp Aquos Sense 9 smartphone features a 6.1-inch LTPO IGZO OLED display with support for a 240Hz high refresh rate.
- The chipset inside the smartphone is the newly released Qualcomm Snapdragon 7s Gen 2 5G chipset, which is capable of reaching clock speeds of 4×2.4 GHz.
- The Sharp Aquos Sense 9 smartphone arrives with Android 14 out-of-the-box with stock UI for better user experience.
- The Sharp Aquos Sense 9 smartphone has a 50MP dual rear camera system with a 32MP selfie camera.
- The phone has a 5000mAh battery with 36W wired fast charging support.
Design and Display
The Sharp Aquos Sense 9 brings a whole new design that is quite different from others. It features a rugged design but not in the form of a traditional plastic build but rather uses aluminum. The body is crafted from a single aluminum piece using a CNC-machining process. This results in a strong body that doesn’t break or bend, even under immense pressure. In fact, the Sharp Aquos Sense 9 is military-grade MIL-STD-810H/MIL-STD-810G certified, so it is capable of surviving harsh conditions.
The design not only looks good but also feels great, thanks to the flat design. Overall, the design and build quality is fantastic and you will find nothing to complain about. The Sharp Aquos Sense 9 comes in Black, White, Green, Coral, Greige, and Blue colors.
As for the display, the new smartphone features a 6.1-inches LTPO IGZO OLED display with support for a 240Hz high refresh rate, which is a rarity. This would make animations and user interactions on the display much smoother than on other phones. The display is also extremely bezel-less with uniform bezels all around. This screen has an FHD+ resolution and is capable of featuring up to 1 billion colors, so watching content on the screen will be a pleasure. The brightness of the display can reach as high as 2000 nits under direct sunlight, so using the smartphone outdoors will pose no issue.
Memory and Internal
Sharp equipped the Sharp Aquos Sense 9 with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 7s Gen 2 5G chipset. This chipset is capable of reaching a clock speed of 4×2.4 GHz. This is not the fastest chipset on the market, not by a long margin, but it has enough performance for everyday tasks and apps like Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Snapchat, and more.
This level of performance is also seen in the gaming side of things and some of the most popular games like PUBGm, Summoners War, CODm, and Genshin Impact run decently well. You may not get good performance at the max graphical settings but at lower settings, those games run just fine. The metal body spreads the heat quite efficiently and ensures there’s no overheating.
The Sharp Aquos Sense 9 also supports 5G connectivity and downloading movies and other files has never been this fast. The smartphone also comes with Android 15 with stock UI for better user experience. Having Android 15 out of the box is certainly a good thing. As for memory and storage, the Sharp Aquos Sense 9 is available for purchase in two options: 6GB + 128GB or 8GB + 256GB of RAM and internal storage.
Camera
The Sharp Aquos Sense 9 features a 50MP dual rear camera setup. The primary rear camera consists of a 50MP sensor, which is properly optimized to take in more light than usual and achieve higher details. Therefore, any picture taken with this camera tends to have higher detail levels, saturated colors, and a good dynamic range. The detail levels are better than other smartphones in the same price range.
The second ultra-wide camera in this smartphone has a 50MP sensor, and it takes quite great pictures with wide FOV. The detail level is similar to the primary camera but there’s a bit of color shift comparatively. On the front, the smartphone has a 32MP selfie camera that can capture great selfies. The selfies manage to capture subjects with high facial details with a natural skin tone. When it comes to video recording, both the rear and selfie cameras can shoot videos with a good amount of details and they are stabilized with gyro-EIS. Therefore, the footage from these cameras will be stable.
Battery and Others
The Sharp Aquos Sense 9 has a high-capacity 5000mAh battery that can keep this smartphone running for at least 1 – 2 days with light to medium usage, which includes camera, texting, movies, music, and a bit of social media. Getting three days of battery life is also achievable with lighter usage.
However, if you play a lot of games or use 5G to download movies, the battery will drain a lot faster and won’t last a full day. Nonetheless, the smartphone supports 36W wired fast charging, which should fully charge the phone in under 1 hour and 30 minutes. Unfortunately, there’s no support for wireless charging capability. Apart from that, the smartphone has support for dual-band Wi-Fi 5, Bluetooth 5.1, a side-mounted fingerprint sensor, stereo speakers, NFC, and a USB Type-C connector for charging. The smartphone will start at $347 (Rs 29,999 in India) approx.
Sharp Aquos Sense 9 Pros and Cons
Sharp Aquos Sense 9 Specifications Detail
Down below you can see the full specifications of the Sharp Aquos Sense 9 smartphone.
| Specifications | Sharp Aquos Sense 9 |
| Network | 2G, 3G, 4G, 5G |
| Announced | October 2024 |
| SIM | Nano-SIM + eSIM |
| Dimensions | 5.87 x 2.87 x 0.35 inches |
| Weight | 166 g |
| Size | 6.1 inches |
| Display | LTPO IGZO OLED 1B colors 240Hz 1500-2000 nits brightness 19.5:9 ratio ~422 PPI density |
| Protection/Others | IP68 water/dust resistant MIL-STD-810H/MIL-STD-810G compliant Drop resistant up to 1.2m |
| Resolution | 1080 x 2340 pixels |
| OS | Android 14, up to 3 major Android upgrades |
| Chipset | 4nm – Qualcomm SM7435-AB Snapdragon 7s Gen 2 |
| CPU | Octa-core 4×2.40 GHz Cortex-A78 4×1.95 GHz Cortex-A55 |
| GPU | Adreno 710 |
| Card slot | microSDXC |
| RAM | 6GB, 8GB |
| Internal | 128GB, 256GB |
| Camera | 50 MP (wide), dual pixel PDAF, OIS 50 MP (122˚ultrawide) LED flash, HDR, panorama Max – gyro-EIS |
| Selfie | 32 MP (wide) Max – gyro-EIS |
| Loudspeaker | Yes (stereo speakers) |
| 3.5mm jack | Yes 24-bit/192kHz Hi-Res & Hi-Res wireless audio |
| WLAN | Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, dual-band |
| Bluetooth | 5.1, A2DP, LE, aptX Adaptive |
| GPS | Yes |
| NFC | Yes |
| Infrared port | No |
| Radio | No |
| USB | USB Type-C 3.2, DisplayPort 1.4 |
| Sensors | Side-mounted fingerprint, accelerometer, gyro, proximity, compass |
| Battery | 5000 mAh 36W wired |
| Colors | Black, White, Green, Coral, Greige, Blue |
| Expected Price | $347 (Rs 29,999 in India) approx |
Conclusion
The Sharp Aquos Sense 9 has provided what other smartphones have been failing to do in the $500 price range. The $500 market used to be highly competitive but the same cannot be said now since most phones in this range focus on the chipset too much, the display, or the battery. However, the Sharp Aquos Sense 9 delivers in almost every aspect of the phone and not just in a specific area.
The display has a super high refresh rate, which is rarely found in other phones. The camera is also great with a fantastic ultra-wide performance. The battery is also great and charges decently fast. However, the best part is its design, which not only looks good but will also last a long time. The only con is the processor, which is not on par with other phones in the same price range.
That’s not to say it’s a bad processor. It’s not really, but you would want a bit more performance at this price, which is not the case here. However, everything else is fantastic. The only decent alternative to this phone would be the OnePlus Nord 4, which has similar specs except for one thing: chipset. The processor inside the Nord 4 is miles ahead of one in the Sharp Aquos Sense 9 while being cheaper. However, the final decision is up to you, so it is better to choose a smartphone based on your needs and requirements.
